tell
pronunciation
How to pronounce tell in British English:
UK [tel]
How to pronounce tell in American English:
US [tel]
-
- Verb:
- express in words
- let something be known
- narrate or give a detailed account of
- give instructions to or direct somebody to do something with authority
- discern or comprehend
- inform positively and with certainty and confidence
- give evidence
- mark as different
Word Origin
- tell
- tell: [OE] Tell goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *taljan, a derivative of *talō ‘something told’ (from which English gets tale). This in turn was formed from the base *tal-, source also of English talk. Beside ‘narrative, discourse’ lies another strand of meaning, ‘counting, enumeration’ (pointing back to an original common denominator ‘put in order’), which survives in all told and the derivative teller ‘counter of votes’, and also in the related German zählen ‘count’.=> tale, talk
- tell (v.)
- Old English tellan "to reckon, calculate, number, compute; consider, think, esteem, account" (past tense tealde, past participle teald), from Proto-Germanic *taljan "to mention in order" (cognates: Old Saxon tellian "tell," Old Norse telja "to count, number; to tell, say," Old Frisian tella "to count; to tell," Middle Dutch and Dutch tellen, Old Saxon talon "to count, reckon," Danish tale "to speak," Old High German zalon, German zählen "to count, reckon"), from PIE root *del- (2) "to count, reckon" (see tale). Meaning "to narrate, announce, relate" in English is from c. 1000; that of "to make known by speech or writing, announce" is from early 12c. Sense of "to reveal or disclose" is from c. 1400; that of "to act as an informer, to 'peach' " is recorded from 1901. Meaning "to order (someone to do something)" is from 1590s. To tell (someone) off "reprimand" is from 1919. Original sense in teller and phrase to tell time. For sense evolution, compare French conter "to count," raconter "to recount;" Italian contare, Spanish contar "to count, recount, narrate;" German zählen "to count," erzählen "to recount, narrate." Klein also compares Hebrew saphar "he counted," sipper "he told."
- tell (n.)
- "mound, hill," 1864, from Arabic tall, related to Hebrew tel "mount, hill, heap." Compare Hebrew talul "lofty," Akkadian tillu "woman's breast."
Example
- 1. I can tell dad is happy .
- 2. Tell us in the comments .
- 3. Turtles can tell more about roads than hares .
- 4. Tell a story about the artist .
- 5. Clever electronics can tell the difference .